Imagine Los Angeles gradually transformed into a giant Southern
California orchard laced with bikepaths and solar freight
rail, tended by thousands of solar co-op communities. These
living communities, or ecolonies, have both private and shared areas,
include quiet solar-powered neighborhood industries, and are surrounded
by gardens and playgrounds on land formerly covered by concrete,
apartments and asphalt. We electrify ourselves with
photovoltaics and water ourselves with the desalted Pacific.
Colorful cultures and diverse lifestyles make life vibrant. City living
takes on a lot of the best of country.

We're healthier, happier and sexier.

The city as presently constituted is the enemy of physical and
spiritual health. We meditate, center ourselves, our souls
open, lights change, horns honk, traffic jams and we crack up
again. We're inspired by ancient teachings and traumatized by
local news. We free our hearts but are afraid to walk at
night. We eat the best food yet 80% of our diet, by weight,
is rotten air. We become slim and muscular while our lungs
turn gritty yellow. We try to raise children to respect life
in a city which has killed nature. We yearn for community in
an ocean of locked and barred suburban cells. We seek
creative work but sell our lives.

Citizen Planners is a group founded last year to prove we need not just
endure what must instead be changed.d We're holistic urban designers
whose aims are safe and friendly neighborhood, full employment, easy
transit, solar power, urban agriculture, pure water, clean air and
natural beauty in Los Angeles. We invent practical
transitions to
these.

Rather
than escape "back to the land" only to find crowds there escaping city
crowds, we prefer to "bring back the land." Though most city
land is paved and built, much of this area can be released for orchard,
garden and play by changing our housing and transportation systems.

As our name implies, we encourage city planning by everyone who lives
here. Traditional planners are busy designing taller
buildings and wider highways. WeĠre designing
alternatives. Our members include doctors, housewives,
professors, gardeners, poets, architects, carpenters, authors, clerks,
urban designers, lifeguards, factory managers, artists, economists,
labors, capitalists, very young and very old. We have new
ideas of progress and growth. We work and play
together. Potlucks and field trips unite us.

Our newsletter Sensual Cities describes our latest projects.
Research and Action Groups gather information on the nuts-and-bolts of
uban agriculture, regional resources and appropriate
technology. Our Eco-Home
Network supports household
conservation, recycling and self-sufficiency. Our members
also offer professional consultation to renters, homeowners,
businesses, community organizations and governments. Two
slide shows "The Edible City" and "World Peace: What Will It Look
Like?" are available to groups.

Membership is $15/year and contributions are tax-deductible (checks to
Urban Ecology, Inc) We're especially looking for expanded
office space and for donations of housing and land for construction of
urban eco-villages. Our book and poster Los Angeles: A
History of the Future detail more of what we forsee.